Packaging repositories contain a debian/ directory without the source used to create the Debian source package (.dsc). They also contain instructions to tell debhelper how to get the source used to create the source package.

The repository should have the name of the source package it generates with -packaging appended to the end. For example, a packaging repository that generates a source package called sandwich would be called sandwich-packaging.

New PPAs can be created dynamically by the CI server using a special git-branch naming convention. The name of the branch translates literally to the name of the PPA: http://repo.ubports.com/dists/[branchname]

Non-standard PPAs (i.e. not xenial, vivid or bionic) are kept for three months. In case they need to be kept for a longer time, a file with the name ubports.keep can be created in the root of the repository, containing the date until which the PPA shall be kept open in the form of YYYY-MM-dd. If this file is empty, the PPA will be kept for two years after the last build.